The ASUS Padfone 2 is coming to Malaysia and we’ll be getting a first hand look of the device this week. Details on pricing and operator availability is expected to be revealed by the end of this week so stay tuned as we share updates.

The PadFone 2 features a larger and improved 4.7-inch 720p Super IPS+ display that is capable of pushing out a not to shabby 550nits (the original Padfone has a 4.3-inch display). Powering the device is a 1.5Ghz quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor with ARM Cortex A15 cores paired to a healthy 2GB of RAM.

In the imaging department, you get a 13MP f/2.4 camera at the rear (8MP in the original Padfone) and a 1.2MP front shooter (VGA in the ori Padfone). Beyond the bump in megapixels the rear camera is capable of shooting 1080p videos at 30fps and 720p videos at 60fps. When capturing stills, the device is capable of shooting up to 100 continuous shots at full 13MP resolution.

Padfone 2 also comes with a redesigned tablet dock which is now much slimmer thanks to a revised docking system that does away with a need to have a cover to secure the phone inside the dock. Also the phone portion of the Padfone now sits vertically in the dock as opposed the horizontal orientation in the previous Padfone.

The new tablet dock features the same 10.1-inch, 1280×800 IPS screen as the old one. Interestingly, the battery inside the table is now smaller – 5,000mAh versus 6,600mAh in the old PadFone. On the other hand, the battery inside the phone itself has increased in capacity from 1,520mAh in the old version to a 2,140mAh in the Padfone 2. The tablet dock is also significantly lighter at 512g without the phone versus the 724g of the previous tablet dock.

Other specs of note include LTE, NFC, Micro USB 2.0 and MHL connectivity but unfortunately there’s no microSD expension. ASUS has however included a free 2-year 50GB ASUS WebStorage subscription. The Padfone 2 will ship with Android 4.0.4 installed but ASUS says that an update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean will be released shortly after launch.

Head over to after the jump for a collection of ASUS Padfone 2 promo videos. They are quite informative a worth a watch. Also check out our review of the original ASUS Padfone here.

The Snapdragon S4 /S4 Pro doesn't use ARM Cortex A15 cores. Instead they are of a custom design and are called Krait. Performance wise they are between Cortex A9 and Cortex A15. That's why you can see Snapdragon S4 which "only " has two cores trading blows with quad core Cortex A9 SoCs like the Tegra 3 and Exynos 4 Quad

Why is it when Samsung and Apple sell their wares here, they are able to price their devices comparable to what's offered in other countries but Asus price are often highly inflated locally?
Paying for something that's evenly priced worldwide reinforces my purchase decision.